Changing Ways

I’m a big fan of Werewolf the Apocalypse. The Onyx Path created W20 edition (2oth anniversary) was a masterpiece of modernization, taking a fatalistic "We're doomed, but we're going down fighting" and making it "We are mostly doomed, but if we don't give in there's a chance." Giving the werewolf a world/ millennia spanning history/ culture/ purpose/ feel was a tough follow up to White Wolf’s previous Vampire games, but boy did Werewolf deliver. After years of regret I’ve managed to acquire my Glasswalker dog tags, and already I’m annoying the Princess of Amber by wearing it everywhere.

There was a reboot by Onyx Path into a new "realty/ cosmology" called Werewolf: the Forsaken, which turned them from worldwide warriors part of an unseen but felt spiritual battle into… local spiritual janitors. It felt less epic and I'll always be an Apocalypse werewolf.

I bring this up because of a post that appeared on a Werewolf Facebook group I frequent. It referenced The White Wolf Problem, succinctly

To explain: in December, 2017, Onyx Path Publishing published a new book for White Wolf's system, Werewolf: the Apocalypse. This book, Changing Ways, is about the life of werewolves, and contains worldbuilding that is deeply transphobic, homophobic, and sexist.

I'm going on record here, long form, that Werewolf the Apocalypse at its realest is NOT transphobic, homophobic or sexist. For one, they change forms, so I've no idea how you could extrapolate trans-phobia into that. Gender changers, gender spectrums, sheer outside of grade-school XX/XY understandings – nature has that abundance, already, in reality. I can't fathom how you could decide to use Werewolf to push an unnatural and out-of-place agenda (a-gender?) such as this.

To be blunt. Bring me your sexuality spectrum werewolves. Bring me your non-male, non-cis, non-straight, non-white werewolves, and bring them in their thousands as they are canon, they are valid and they are part of The People.